Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Conflict Analysis in ‘World Class’ Cities: Urban Renewal, Informal Transport Workers, and Legal Disputes in Lagos

  • Published:
Urban Forum Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper focuses on the disconnect between, on the one hand, the neoliberal aspirations to make Lagos a model megacity for the twenty-first century and, on the other hand, the precarious temporality of the present in which many informal workers weave their routine existence. In particular, the paper examines the corrupt and violent manner in which the Lagos State Road Traffic Law of 2012 has been adapted by the government to restrict the space and mobility of informal workers as a function of making Lagos a ‘world class’ megacity and ‘Africa’s big apple.’ Focusing on commercial motorbike-taxi (okada) riders and their association, the analysis extends to how one group of informal workers in Lagos are responding to neoliberal urban planning that impinge on their opportunities in, and rights to, the city. In this way, the paper illuminates our rather tenuous understanding of how informal workers exercise agency as they attempt to intervene in the unequal processes of urban renewal projects.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999–2007), during his first official visit to Lagos State.

  2. Fashola reformed the tax system, which resulted in an increase in tax revenues to $115 million per month in 2015, up from $3.2 million in 1999. Tax compliance increased to 80%, up from about 30% in 2005 (Ighobor 2016: p. 9, cited in Agbiboa 2016).

  3. The BRT was adopted to provide safe, affordable, and reliable transportation services to all Lagosians, while simultaneously formalizing the obstreperous transport industry. The post-1999 government in Lagos gave pride of place to transport as the key engine of economic development.

  4. Lateef Jakande (aka ‘Baba Kekere’—‘small father’) was the first elected governor of Lagos State from 1979 to 1983. During his time in office, Jakande advanced a strategic plan for Lagos and undertook large municipal investments in housing, schools, and transportation, including plans for an urban rail system.

  5. From the perspective of the Lagos State Government, Section 3(1) of the LSRTL is ‘a deliberate legislative response to the growing public concern about the spate of avoidable deaths, crime and high casualty rate directly associated with the commercial motorcycle operation in Lagos’ (see Counter-Affidavit, Archives).

  6. A form of partially institutionalized popular contention against the state whereby aggrieved citizens seek to legitimize their causes by making use of state’s own laws, policies, or rhetoric in framing their protests (see O’Brien and Li 2006).

References

  • Agbiboa, D. E. (2015). Policing is not work. It is stealing by force. Corrupt policing and related abuses in everyday Nigeria. Africa Today, 62(2), 95–126.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Agbiboa, D.E. (2016). ‘Frontiers of urban survival: everyday corruption and precarious existence in Lagos.’ PhD thesis. Oxford University.

  • Agbiboa, D. E. (2017). No condition is permanent: informal transport workers and labour precarity in Africa’s largest city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. doi:10.1111/1468-2427.12440.

  • Alemika, E. (1988). Policing and perceptions of police in Nigeria. Police Studies, 11, 161–176.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aradeon, D. (1997). Oshodi: replanners’ options for a subcity. AAfrican Quarterly on the Arts, 2(1), 051–058.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bacon, E. (1974). Design of cities. London: Thames and Hudson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Basinski, S. (2009). All fingers are not equal: a report on street vendors in Lagos, Nigeria. Lagos: CLEEN Foundation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bayat, A. (1997). Un-Civil Society: The Politics of the ‘Informal’ People. Third World Quarterly, 18(1): 53–72.

  • Bayat, A., & Biekart, K. (2009). Cities of extremes. Development and Change, 40(5), 815–825.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bhan, G. (2009). ‘This is no longer the city I once knew’. Evictions, the urban poor and the right ot the city in millennial Delhi, Environment and Urbanization 21(1), 127–142.

  • Butler, C. (2012). Henri Lefebvre: spatial politics, everyday life, and the right to the City. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chakravarty, S. and Negi, R. (2016). Exploring urban change in South Asia: space, planning and everyday contestations in Delhi. Springer (ebook).

  • Comaroff, J., & Comaroff, J. L. (Eds.). (2006). Law and disorder in the postcolony. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Comaroff, J., & Roberts, S. (1981). Rules and processes: the cultural logic of dispute in an african context. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

  • Davis, M. (2006). Planet of slums. London: Verson.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Gramont, D. (2015). ‘Governing Lagons: unlocking the politics of reform.’ Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. January.

  • Dikec, M. (2001). Justice and the spatial imagination. Environment and Planning, A33(10), 1785–1805.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eckert, J. (2012). Rumours of Rights. In: J. Eckert, B. Donahoe, C. Strumpell, and Z. Ozlem-Biner (eds.), Law against the State: Ethnographic Forays into Law Transformations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 147-170.

  • Fajemirokun, M. (2010) ‘Policy and legal perspectives on actualizing the right to the city in Nigeria.’ In: Sugranyes A. and Mathivet, C., Cities for all: proposals and experiences towards the right to the city. Santiago, Chile: Habitat International Coalition, HIC, pp. 267–269.

  • Ferguson, J. (2006). Global shadows: Africa in the neoliberal world order. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Gandi, M. (2006). Planning, anti-planning and the infrastructure crisis facing metropolitan Lagos. Urban Studies, 43(2), 371–396.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ighobor, K. (2016). Lagos now wears a new look. African Renewal. April. http://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/april-2016/lagos-now-wears-new-look.

  • Kaplan, R.D. (1994). ‘The coming anarchy.’ The Atlantic monthly. February, pp. 44–76.

  • Kuris, G. (2014). ‘Remaking a neglected megacity: a civic transformation in Lagos State, 1999–2012.’ NJ, Princeton University, pp. 1–22.

  • Kusenbach, M. (2003). Street phenomenology: the go-along as ethnographic research tool. Ethnography, 4(3), 455–485.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lefebvre, H. (1996). Writings on cities. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • LSRTL (Lagos State Road Traffic Law). (2012). Lagos state government. Alahusa: Ikeja.

    Google Scholar 

  • Makeham, P. (2005). Performing the city. Theatre Research International, 30(2), 150–160.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marcuse, P. (2009). From critical urban theory to the right to the city. City, 13(2–3), 185–196.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marcuse, P. (2014). Reading the right to the city. City, 18(1), 4–9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mehta, S. (2004). Maximum city: Bombay lost and found. London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Myers, G. (2011). African cities: alternative visions of urban theory and practice. London: Zed.

    Google Scholar 

  • Neuwirth, R. (2006). Shadow cities: a billion squatters, a new urban world. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • NewsWireNGR (2015). ‘Can’t the poor live in Lagos? Riverine settlers lament over the Fashola led administration.’ 19 March.

  • O’Brien, K.J., & Li, L. (2006). Rightful resistance in rural China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • PM News (2011). ‘Lagos sacks 90 KAI officers over stealing, extortion.’ September 13. http://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2011/09/13/lagos-sacks-90-kai-officers-over-stealing-extortion/.

  • Premium Times (2014). Akinwunmi Ambodie wins Lagos APC governorship primaries. http://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/172484-breaking-akinwunmi-ambode-wins-lagos-apc-governorship-primaries.html.

  • Probst, P. (2012). Lagos-Oshodi: inspecting an urban icon. In K. Pinther, L. Forster, & C. Hanussek (Eds.), Afropolis: city, media and arts (pp. 138–143). Johannesburg: Jacana Media.

    Google Scholar 

  • Purcell, M. (2003). Citizenship and the right to the global city: reimagining the capitalist world order. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 27(3), 564–590.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roy, A., & AlSayyad, N. (Eds.). (2004). Urban informality: transnational perspectives from the Middle East, South Asia and Latin America. Lanham: Lexington Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roy, A. (2005). Urban informality: towards an epistemology of planning. Journal of the American Planning Association, 71(2), 147–158.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roy, I. (2013). Contesting consensus. disputing inequality: agonistic subjectivities in rural bihar. South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, 01, 1–17.

  • Simone, A. (2004). People as infrastructure: intersecting fragments in johannesburg. Public Culture, 16(3), 407–429.

  • Smith, D.J. (2007). A Culture of Corruption: Everyday Deception and Popular Discontent in Nigeria. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

  • Telegraph (2014). ‘Meet the man who tamed Nigeria’s most lawless city.’ 24 October.

  • The City Pulse (2014). ‘Fayose warns Okada riders.’ November 27. http://www.societypulsenews.com/society/fayose-warns-okada-riders/.

  • The Economist (2015). ‘Learning from Lagos.’ 4 July.

  • The Guardian (2014). ‘Nigeria: the success story of Lagos.’ 8 October.

  • The New York Times (2013). ‘In Nigeria’s largest city, homeless are paying the price of progress.’ 1 March.

  • The New York Times (2014). What Makes Lagos a Model City. January 7. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/08/opinion/what-makes-lagos-a-model-city.html.

  • The Punch (2014). ‘Lagos under APC is an animal farm—Fasheun.’ 26 July.

  • The Village Square (2013). ‘The kidnapping of poor Nigerians by Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola of Lagos.’ 02 August.

  • TI (Transparency International) (1999). Corruption Perception Index 1999. https://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/cpi_1999/0/.

  • TI (Transparency International) (2000). Corruption Perception Index 2000. https://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/cpi_2000/0/.

  • Urry, J. (2007). Mobilities. Malden: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vanguard (2013). ‘WARNING: poor people are not wanted in Lagos Megacity.’ 7 September.

  • Vanguard (2014). ‘Babatunde Raji Fashola: what you see is what you get.’ 8 May.

  • YouTube (2013). ‘Lagos: Africa’s Big Apple.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-YiOvZuzAg.

Legal Documents (Lagos State Archives)

  • Affidavit, Aliyu Wamba, 08 February 2012

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, 3351 N. Fairfax Drive, MSN 4D3, Arlington, VA, 22201, USA

    Daniel E. Agbiboa

Authors
  1. Daniel E. Agbiboa
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Daniel E. Agbiboa.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Agbiboa, D.E. Conflict Analysis in ‘World Class’ Cities: Urban Renewal, Informal Transport Workers, and Legal Disputes in Lagos. Urban Forum 29, 1–18 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-017-9312-5

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-017-9312-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation